Africa needs more than lip service to rise into the 21st century. This view was put forward last Saturday and Sunday when over 300 delegates from around the world congregated in Concordia’s H-110 auditorium to show exactly how youth can stop talking--and start acting--during the second annual Global Forum on International Cooperation Conference.

“We don’t want to be like every other forum that talks about these issues, we want to follow this up with action,” said political science major Awel Uwihanganye, who is also director-general of the GFIC.

Conference delegates met with members of non-governmental organizations, learned about volunteer opportunities in Uganda and other parts of the African continent, and were given the opportunity to start local Forum on International Cooperation chapters at their universities--all in the name of bringing development to a continent that has been supporting the world’s largest colonial powers for centuries.

Panelists and speakers included Liberal MP Marlene Jennings, Uganda’s former deputy High Commissioner to India Nimisha J. Madhavani and Omar Aktouf, a management professor at HEC Montréal. Aktouf was also a candidate for the Union des Forces Progressives in the last provincial elections.

Concordia’s department of political science, the Concordia Student Union, and FIC Concordia were partners in the event.

A taste of the speakers

Madhvani, currently working at the embassy of the Republic of Uganda in Washington, D.C. says that development must come from inside the African continent, with investment that has less conditions attached to it.

She explained how America must act like their neighbours to the East--India and China--to invest and help develop the continent of Africa without forcing an ideology down its throat.

“There is this [American] zeal which I don’t dissapreciate, of trying to bring about some level of governance of people … Well we can’t say, ‘we are going to keep you underdeveloped until you reach this level of governance,” Madhvani said. “And I think the Chinese [and Indian] will say here is the money, we know you need the railway, we’ll also buy some of your cotton, because we need it for us. [China and India] look at [trade] much more economically,” she said.

Madhvani explained that the UN and America can talk all they want, but what Africans want to see is results, and their quality of life increasing.

“People aren’t worried about what the UN has to say about human rights or millennium development goals, they’re worried about feeding their children today, making money, sending them to school and giving them a future,” Madhvani said.

Omar Aktouf

If a few delegates found some of the speeches a little dry at times, they were surely on the edge of their seats, faces straight forward, directing all their attention towards former UFP candidate Aktouf, who held nothing back as he brought forth some of the harshest criticism of the weekend.

Although he stressed that when he insulted politicians he was not attacking their person, but the “elitist mafioso system” they represent, he called George Bush an animal, “with all due respect to animals,” for spearheading the “nazification” and “fascification” of the capitalist system which he says is not longer able to use ideology to influence countries, but only force.

“It’s the conquest of Iraq, of Afghanistan, soon enough Iran, and unfortunately we will see this happening before the African countries are able to organize.”

What he thinks will happen is the onset of the Third World War.

“Right now war between emerging powers like China, and Russia and Europe are in areas like Darfur,” he said, explaining how each power is equipping different tribes in the region.

“Nigeria, Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, It’s a war between Russia and the United States and China that is being fought by proxy,” he said, “the next step will be a more direct confrontation.”

Aktouf was preaching to the converted--receiving supportive cheers at times, but he said he would most definitely like to speak to policy-makers--but there is a slight hurdle he faces.

“They don’t want to hear this communist,” he said, in an exasperated tone, “they don’t want to listen to me, they want to listen to people to say what they are expecting to hear.”

What students are doing

“Our whole objective of this event is to engage youth, to unite them,” said Nick Blesser, co-chair of the forum’s organizational committee, who just completed a political science major.

Aside from several Ugandan youth who couldn’t come to Canada because of visa issues, he said the forum was “a smashing success.”

Blesser said the NGO fair was packed for two hours with over 20 organizations. He said NGOs told him “it was one of the best recruiting days they’ve ever had.”

He is currently working on starting an international leadership institute, hoping to train people in foreign relations and internationl policy. He’s also got his hands in on projects of community building and child development programs in Uganda.

Blesser is encouraging delegates at the conference to start FIC chapters at their own universities.

“What it takes is leadership from an individual, or a couple of individuals to be inspired, to want to take it to their own university, that is how every Canadian chapter has started.”

Sarah Mostafa-Kamel is a McGill political science student who is starting an FIC chapter at her university.

“I think it’s very important to bring this kind of group at McGill. [FIC] is very open to everyone. I’m very encouraged to see that there are a lot of people from McGill who came to this conference,” she said.

Peter Schiefke was moderator for Saturday’s second panel on the role of African institutions in ending conflict and fostering democratic governance.

Along with Uwihanganye, Shiefke co-founded the Concordia Volunteer Abroad program. The program provides student with voluteer opportunity in Uganda. The main project is to build a village and community centre. The program is financed by a Concordia student levy, but Schiefke expects to receive funding from outside sources as well.

He said a large number of conference delegates showed interest in the Volunteer Abroad Program. So many that he’s having a hard time coordinating it.

“I’m hoping to turn the program into a credit class, so people can volunteer for credit,” he said.

Uwihanganye wanted the project set up in his home country of Uganda. He said it is up to Africans to do what he did to have improvements in the continent--come to North America and speak directly to the people.

He said the failure of African governments is the inability to make “inroads with civil society in America.”

He gives the example of farm subsidies in the West that make it difficult for African agriculture to expand and export.

“In this case, we would have to arrange for Africans themselves to have discussions with farmer associations, to come and explain how these subsidies are killing a lot of people in Africa. It won’t be the government doing that.”

Canadians and Americans have to make sacrifices,” he said. “it’s what we have been talking about, the global responsibility.”


Find out more on the Global Forum for International Cooperation at www.globalfic.org